Hebrew Roots

Yeshua (whom the Chris­tians call Jesus) was Jewish, there is little doubt about that, and He held the Torah and the fes­ti­vals – the Moadim or “appointed times”. If we are called to follow after Him (and not after e.g. Paul, as Paul him­self acknowl­edges in 1 Cor 3:3-11) then it would make sense to believe that we are also to keep the Moadim and follow the Torah. The Torah is good. As soon as we stop doing it in a futile attempt to save our­selves or become, or appear, right­eous, and instead do it as we pro­gres­sively realise how sen­sible and refreshing it is, we can follow our Maker’s instruc­tions out of the law of freedom.

The Chris­tian Church has taken Yeshua out of His Hebrew con­text, impos­sible as it seems, and turned Him into the founder of a new reli­gion. That’s pretty pre­pos­terous, but under­stand­able. It would have been strange for Gen­tiles to adopt another people’s savior. If the nations had always seen that they are “merely” grafted in branches in an olive tree that is rooted in a dif­ferent nation’s foun­da­tions, that they are par­takers in a sal­va­tion promised to another people, almost a side-effect of this sal­va­tion, evan­ge­li­sa­tion may not have been as effec­tive. The delu­sion of replace­ment the­ology helped make dis­ci­ples. This I would say in response to ques­tions like “If the Lord guides His church, how could it ever go so wrong?” or “Does every­thing the Lord does throughout his­tory serve a pur­pose?” Now dis­ci­ples need to remain humble and curious, mal­leable enough to realise the they haven’t got it all fig­ured out. The church, and in par­tic­ular the US saw, and in part still see them­selves as the new Israel. But a big trend emerges now, called a “move­ment” by some, even if it has “no cen­tral hier­archy or leader and no offi­cial state­ment of faith for mem­bers to endorse” and a “lack of orga­ni­za­tional struc­ture”. Spear­headed by the Mes­sianic Judaism, it is maybe less a move­ment, than a col­lec­tive real­i­sa­tion or awak­ening to truths, not new, but new for us. An impor­tant step in our (gen­tile) walk with our Maker will be to now realise that we are grafted in. We are not (replace­ment) Israel. We are par­takers in a promise made to a spe­cific people. This people’s con­tri­bu­tion to our human cul­ture – sci­ences and art – across the cen­turies is tremen­dous, far dis­pro­por­tionate to their rel­a­tively small size. Over 22% of all Nobel prices ever awarded since 1901 went to Jewish indi­vid­uals (not nec­es­sarily nationals of Israel). This is 100 times more than what the share of Jews among the world pop­u­la­tion would sug­gest. Based not on this fact alone, but on facts like this, it should be con­sid­ered an honor to become, in a way, hon­orary mem­bers of this people, or a com­ple­ment to it, appre­ci­ating that our Maker’s plan does indeed include not just His chosen people, but the entire living world. But we must realise that only in this people, we nations will be blessed, not apart from it or instead of it – Gen 22:18.

The pas­sionate rela­tion­ship of our Cre­ator with this people has led to an unpar­al­leled rich­ness of his­tory and under­standing of their walk with our common Maker, and this is most worthy and insightful to study. I have been doing this for some time now with the Holy Lan­gauge Insti­tute, and was never dis­ap­pointed by a lesson. Most of the time, my mind gets thor­oughly blown each time I delve into the Hebrew writ­ings.

Like every­thing in this cul­ture, the Moadim have mul­tiple, wide­spread and rich prophetic mean­ings as well, so for ori­en­ta­tion in the end times, it will be extremely helpful to have a grasp on the fes­ti­vals, their meaning and their rel­a­tive timing. Just a glimpse: if Yeshua’s first coming ful­filled all the spring feasts down to the instant – our per­fect Passover lamb, buried on Chag Hamatzot (the Fes­tival of Unleav­ened Bread), rising as the First­fruits out of the dead, and giving the Holy Spirit on Shavuot (Pen­te­cost) – is it not plau­sible in the beau­tiful sym­metry our Maker tends to employ in His Mak­ings, that Yeshua’s second coming will ful­fill the fall feasts – appearing with Trumpet sound, bringing about Atone­ment in ful­fil­ment of Yom Hakip­purim, and finally dwelling with us in Taber­na­cles?